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Is there a problem with young black men?

Ros Atkins Ros Atkins | 14:21 UK time, Thursday, 2 November 2006

Meeting? What meeting? OK, I know we failed to show up on the blog at 1100GMT. Sorry. There were two reasons...

A VIEW FROM INSIDE NORTH KOREA...

The first was that a section of tonight's show has already been recorded. If you read the blog yesterday you'll know that James had managed to get hold of Peter Simpson, the first British journalist since its nuclear test last month. wanted the chance to ask him questions about his few days there and that was always going to take some setting up.

The good news is (and you'll know this if you were one of the people who took part) Peter was able to make it into our studio about an hour ago, and some of you who'd posted and emailed joined him to ask your questions. I found it fascinating and I hope you will too when we play it later. It's rare we pre-record anything but it's very late at night there when we go on air.

IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH YOUNG BLACK MEN?

The second reason we delayed posting about the meeting was that we got into a long discussion about whether to ask the question that's in bold just above. On Wednesday morning I went to get some milk at the shops in where I live to find that a lot of it was cordoned off by the police after .

When I got home I called a friend to see if they knew anything. They didn't but said something along the lines of, 'well it'll just be one black guy shooting another'. I then checked the excellent which is always faster than the local media for stories in the area, and got the low down. Sure enough, there had been an altercation between two groups of black men which had ended in three being shot - and one dying later. It got me thinking whether my friend had been racist in saying what she had, or whether it was fair comment as the only shootings I can think of in the area have involved young black men.

So this morning I stood by the bus stop just metres away from the pavement where this young man died... His blood is still there, as are bullet marks on the wall and the inevitable police tape keeping the public off the crime scene... And I wondered if this was something we might discuss on World Have Your Say. Is there a problem with young black men and how violent some of them can be? (There's no doubt many of you in Britain think the answer is yes.) Or is this just lazy thinking... by putting black people in categories according to the colour of their skin... And failing to understand the reasons behind violent and criminal behaviour...

Everyone was interested in the subject so after talking through some of the stories Richard noted earlier, we all went online and got on the phone to try and find out if there was a broader discussion to be had. The resounding answer we heard was yes - one gentlemen who writes for a London newspaper aimed at the black community said it was time black people spoke frankly about what he called 'a problem'. Friends of mine in South Africa, Zambia and Kenya (all black) confirmed they too saw this as a major talking point. Priya, Anna and Richard all found further evidence that many of you have been talking about this issue.

So we're going to ask 'is there a problem with young black men?' Whatever your skin colour we'd like your views and experiences... And if you want to question the premise of the discussion you can do that here on the blog as well as on the programme.

Speak to you later.

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